Exclusive Preview: Mike Grell Artwork from “X-Men Forever Giant-Size”

They’ve both been active in American comics for so long it’s hard to believe they’ve apparently never worked together before, but May 26’s X-Men Forever Giant-Size #1 looks like it’ll be the first collaboration between Chris Claremont and Warlord/Jon Sable artist Mike Grell. We’ve got the cover and an exclusive preview of a few interior pages of Grell’s artwork, below. There’s a little bit of a backstory here, too–the story finds Grell drawing the Imperial Guard, who were created by Claremont and the late Dave Cockrum in Uncanny X-Men back in 1977, as a sort of parody of the Legion of Super-Heroes. Cockrum had been the regular Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes artist a few years earlier, and Grell had followed him there, working from Cockrum’s distinctive character designs, as he’s once again doing here. And the backup reprint for this issue is another “walking in Dave Cockrum’s footsteps” landmark: Uncanny X-Men #108, in which John Byrne took over from Cockrum.